The talented folks at Lab 42 showcase the social food scene.
I was going to recap all the awesomeness that happened at SXSW interactive, but I wasn’t able to go this year and recapping something I can’t provide first hand knowledge of feels lame. I heard it was awesome and a new version of Foursquare debuted. While you can still check in and grab that coveted Mayorship from your boss, Foursquare’s also working to make places more inspirational by connecting the real world more with their app.
My recent fascination is Kickstarter, a newish online hub buzzing with entreprenuership and creativity. Launched in 2008, it’s a new way to get word out about an idea to fund your creative project. It’s one of those kickass (alt: genius, Collin?) ideas that you can’t believe didn’t exist before. And then you realize Kickstarter could only exist in today’s digital universe, as it relies on social/viral/word of mouth to create excitement and eventual crowdfunding success for enterprising kickstarters.
How it works is simple. Creative projects are showcased by visionary people or teams who want to do something “they love, something fun or at least something of note” by asking for money from we masses to make it happen. The kick is: projects get all-or-nothing funding. Let’s say you want $10,000 to make a movie about Earth Day and set a deadline of April 22. Backers are only charged if the full funding amount has been met. So even if you you’ve gotten $5,000 of funding from 200 people, your project won’t gather a dime from the effort.
Quick stats: The average pledge is $71 and the most common pledge is $25. A little less than half of projects are successfully funded.
Consider those number and then consider this recent success story: Videogame developer Double Fine Productions launched a Kickstarter project in February 2012, with a goal of $400,000 to produce an old school adventure game – $300K to produce it & $100K to film it. They raised $1 million in less than 24 hours, from tens of thousands of fans, and ended up raising $3.3 million total. Amazing.
New fundraising platforms like Kickstarter have emerged as a viable option to corporate backing. Which means more creative projects will eventually make it to market. Yay! There are plenty of worthwhile projects in need of funding, including some local ones. Check out Kickstarter.com and take a minute to search “Atlanta, GA” to find (and fund!) them.
Originally published in Atlanta INtown Newspaper, April 2012, “Making Sense of Social” column
The biggest news in social media last month was the surprising data released by the oft-forgotten social media pariah MySpace. In early February, MySpace claimed to have added more than a million new users in December and to be adding 40,000 new members daily. Say what?!
Well, here’s what’s been happening since you last visited the site – which was probably like 4 years ago, right? Right. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back and he’s partly to celebrate for bringing MySpace back too. He and a group of investors bought the platform from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for $35 million in June of 2011. (It’s worth noting the deal they got. Murdoch bought it for $580 million in 2005.)
MySpace Music Player launched in December, including access to a large library of free songs … so large they assert it’s the world’s largest collection of free music. Look out, Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, last.fm and other new kids on the block. MySpace is reinventing itself and reclaiming its identity in the socialsphere.
It’s really all about focus. Companies who find a niche and create products and services valued by the public do well. Those who don’t, lose subscribers and interest quickly. MySpace knows. They lost 10 million members in March of 2011.
Stay tuned. I suspect this will be fun to watch. It will either be a case study in success or failure. There’s not a lot of room for mediocrity online. But MySpace’s staying power is already showing in the buzz they created at the end of 2011 and in their ability to capture headlines this year. Besides Pinterest and the Facebook IPO, it’s been one of the most intriguing social media stories, and there’s an inherent success in that alone.
You can find me @brigflood and at makingsenseofsocial.com (but not on MySpace again … yet).
Originally published in Atlanta INtown Newspaper, March 2012, “Making Sense of Social” column
Turns 8 today. Looks like they’re getting an IPO this birthday.
Read more over at The Huffington post.
There’s a new social sharing platform on the block. It’s called Pinterest. It’s the latest shiny new object on the internets, gaining lots of users and buzz. Most of it good. What is it and why is it so popular? Pinterest is a virtual pinboard, a place to organize and share online images you find interesting or inspiring. Basically, it helps you curate videos, photos, graphics, visually engaging content and things you fancy in one place. You can follow other people’s collections and see what the tastemakers find intriguing too.
Pinterest is easy to use, easy to categorize, easy to give credit for the origin of a photo, idea, design, graphic, quote, outfit, etc. You name it, people are pinning it. There are wedding boards, food boards, home décor boards (make one for each room of your house), fashion boards, sci-fi boards, typography boards, Movember boards and there was even a SOPA protest. Multiple people can contribute to the content on a board, so you can collaborate with friends and colleagues on a project.
To get started, you either have to be invited or you can sign up at pinterest.com, (notes: there’s usually a waiting period before you’re officially in). The limited sign up gives it a certain cache and likely helps Pinterest control system overload. Once you get started, you can search the Everything section to find other users and search categories you like. There’s a Best of Pinterest section that’s definitely worth checking out when you’re wondering what it all means and why everyone thinks it so neat. Use the @mention in your descriptions to directly communicate with other users, just like on Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks.
So what’s all the fuss? Try it and see. According to Experian Hitwise, in December 2011, the invitation-only site had 40 times the number of total visits it had in June 2011. It’s quickly moving into the top 10 websites in their social networkin. Not surprisingly, Pinterest is popular with women between the ages of 25 and 44, a desired demographic for advertisers. Women comprise 59% of its readership, but that might change once the invitation-only barrier is removed.
If you like poster art, street art, knitting and social media, you might find me Pinteresting. You’ll find me here: pinterest.com/brigflood & on Twitter: @brigflood
Facebook: Why & How to Begin Again?
I’m currently trying to make a case for why our company’s engagement is strong without the promotional & giveaways they were conducting before I started as social media manager. It’s not an easy case to make. From their point of view, the number of new fans, comments, likes and shares has decreased. But from my point of view, we are giving our fans and followers more genuine reasons to come back, not just bribing them with gifts for barely any actions. Despite the change of strategy, our engagement remains high, we are more responsive to our customers and we are giving fans and followers more concrete reasons to connect and to come back later than a visa gift card.
Reaching out into the social media community to see if anyone else has encountered this problem. What was your solution? Any & all recommendations or comments are appreciated.
You know the saying that goes, “a good idea is worth stealing?” I’m a big fan and practitioner of it. Really we all are. If you think about it, stealing is what social media is all about. It’s not stealing anymore, it’s sharing instead. See a funny video, share it. Insightful tweet, retweet it. Cool product, Google+ it. Funny post, like & comment on it. All those little stolen pieces become part of your social personality.
In social media practice, the sharing gets taken at least one step further. There are those who manage the communities and there are those who help the managers manage their communities. And both the individuals who use the tools and the companies who create them can access a lot of interesting data. In the wild west of today’s socialsphere, the data is extremely helpful. It benefits each of person, each organization and the still-emerging social media discipline distill all this sharing that everyone is so busy doing. Plan, implement, measure, tweak, rinse, repeat.
Not surprisingly, the most interesting stats come from the organizations having access to all that data. Analysts and data wonks unite (quick shout out to James Nail, one of the best in the biz whom I was lucky enough to work with) At the end of 2011, Ad Age compiled a list of them. Here just a few. Stolen, I mean shared, for your pleasure (sources in parenthesis):
There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users, with more than 200 million added in 2011. (Social Media Examiner)
Nearly every large charity and university in America is on Facebook. Less than 60% of the Fortune 500 are. (Grow)
The average Facebook user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups. (Social Media Examiner)
Forty-three percent of all online consumers are social media fans or followers. (HubSpot)
Netflix’s price hike caused 805,000 paid subscribers to jump ship in the most-recent quarter. (Mashable)
LinkedIn has 64 million users in North America alone. (All Twitter)
What makes people retweet? 92% interesting content. 84% humor. 66% personal connection. 21% celebrity status. 32% offered incentive (tangible or virtual). 26% “Please RT!” (WhiteFireSEO)
Beyonce’s pregnancy news at MTV’s VMAs birthed a new Twitter record of 8,868 Tweets per second. (TechCrunch)
Happy New Year all. Here’s to lots of sharing in 2012. You can find (and RT!) me @brigflood and at makingsenseofsocial.com
Facebook Timeline is here, whether you’re ready for it or not. Launched in late September to much fanfare by Mark Zuckerberg (and faux Zuckerberg, Andy Samberg) at the 2011 F8 Developer Conference, rumor has it that all Facebook profiles will change to timeline by the end of the year. Being that it’s the end of the year, that could happen at any moment. Here’s a quick overview by CNN/Wired on how to master timeline. Hint: it’s not that difficult. Another thing I realized after starting to prep Half Off Depot’s brand pages is that it’s only happening to personal profile pages, not brand pages. Aha!
Here’s a new look at how users engage with the old Facebook profile vs. new Timeline. This eye-tracking data is so cool and useful. Check it out.
As a Facebook Community Manager curating 7+ brand pages a day for Half Off Depot and equally as many Twitter accounts, I find this Year in Facebook Page Management wrap up from Inside Facebook a helpful reminder of all those items I had to figure out, navigate and master quickly. Social media isn’t boring, that’s for sure. There are community members chatting/asking/complaining at any given moment, platform change surprises, insights tweaking, new Facebook ad formats launched, designs being altered … you have to be nimble, quick and be ready to live by this adage: the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Can you believe the holidays are here? Along with them come those end-of-the year occasions you look forward to all year long: sharing time together with friends & family, time off from work, and the end of year blowout sales with sweet, deep discounts. The good part of this time of year include those awesome sales you’ve been waiting for from your favorite retailers and e-tailers (online shops). You end up scoring amazing savings, if you can handle the crowds and the heavy online comparing / sharing.
There are some great online resources to give you the inside scoop on sales, activities and events. Bloggers like ATL on the Cheap (AtlantaOnTheCheap.com, Twitter: @ATLCheap), The Mommy Insider (TheMommyInsider.com, Twitter: @mommyinsider) Atlanta Moms (AtlantaMoms.com, Twitter: @atlantamoms) provide some great local information about where to go and what to do. Not to mention your handy dandy Atlanta Intown paper (atlantaintownpaper.com; Twitter: @ATLINtownpaper). The paper’s tweets are frequent and full of helpful scoop about what’s going on in and around town.
So there’s the frugal part of the holidays, then there’s the other half: the over-indulging. Let’s talk about that for a quick minute. Some people (me included) tend to go overboard with sentimentality and consumption of food & beverages. I’m all for throwing caution to the wind at the buffet and at the bar, but let me be your social media consciousness if you do. Drunk Facebooking, tweeting, Google+ posting & texting are the new drunk dialing, but worse. Believe me, you can get yourself into a quick pickle in 140 characters or less. Social media has more far-reaching consequences. Texting too. Ever looked at textsfromlastnight.com? You should. It’ll scare the pants off you. Or maybe back on you?
So now that we know & agree few things give you true anonymity anymore, go ahead and make a pre-New Year’s resolution: to stay away from a computer and your phone after having enjoyed too much holiday cheer and merriment (aka egg nog at the open bar). Your 2012 is much more likely to start out with a clean slate, if you stick to it. With that, I’m Auld Lang Signing Off until January. A big holiday cheers Atlanta!